Kenneth Shaw of Baltimore, Maryland, was admitted to the emergency room on Christmas Eve after an alleged anti-Gay hate crime.

Shaw said he was on his way home from a neighborhood store when he was cornered by five men at the corner of Rose and Hoffman streets in the city's Berea neighborhood. He was beaten, he said, for 10 to 12 minutes.

HIT ONLY IN FACE
'As my face swelled, I could feel it and it was like the guy kept on hitting me in the same spot and all I can hear is the crunching of my tissue,' Shaw told a Baltimore TV station.

Shaw said that the attackers hit only his face and he was beaten so badly that his mother did not recognize him in the emergency room.

'My son walked into the emergency room and I didn't even recognize my own child. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe somebody beat my son for no reason,' said his mother, Sheila Shaw.

Both Shaw and his mother believe that he was targeted for being Gay, because he was not robbed and all of the blows were aimed at his face.

'I think it was a hate crime because of my lifestyle, and I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything. I don't even know these guys' names,' Shaw said. In the past, he has been the target of anti-Gay slurs, he added.

POLICE INVESTIGATING
No one has been arrested in the case, which the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) has not yet classified as a hate crime. Shaw said he didn't get a good look at his attackers, but is nonetheless confident that the BPD will solve the case.

'I think you get to a point in life where you can't be afraid anymore. This is our stand. This is my son and I know I will lay down my life for my son,' vowed Sheila Shaw.